Posted on: Wednesday, August 15, 2001

Kalapana road will allow lava viewing, protect Hawaiian interests

By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — A Kalapana community leader said yesterday the new county-built road that will allow more visitors to get closer to where lava from Pu'u O'o' enters the ocean is a good idea that will also protect Native Hawaiian interests.

County officials announced yesterday that the road would be opened Friday. Access will be permitted from 2 p.m. daily, with vehicles not allowed to enter after 8:30 p.m. The gates will be locked at 10 p.m.

"It's better. We can see the beauty of Madame Pele," said Robert Keliihoomalu, head of Kalapana Community Hawai'i. "We can share it with the residents and tourists."

The new unpaved access also will keep travelers from tromping over generations of grave sites and from trespassing on land some Hawaiians already have planted as a part of their family's eventual return to the village, destroyed by lava flows in the 1990s.

Crews worked the past few weeks restoring a portion of State Highway 130 on the Kalapana side of the lava flow, which has moved outside the boundaries of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

Big Island Mayor Harry Kim ordered that access be improved for safety reasons. Visitors had been ignoring the barricades at the edge of the hardened pahoehoe (smooth) flow and hiking to the shoreline or using four-wheel-drive vehicles to go most of the way.

Now, instead of a six-mile roundtrip hike, visitors will be able to drive 30 minutes to the end of the new road then hike another half hour to the ocean entry point.

Newly installed signs warn of the myriad dangers awaiting those who make the journey to watch lava pour into the ocean from underground tubes. They include the potentially lethal effects of hydrochloric acid, falling into lava cracks and walking onto lava benches, which have been known to collapse into the sea.

Although the improved access likely will encourage more people to witness the lava spectacle, Hawai'i County Corporation Counsel Lincoln Ashida said the improvements ordered by Kim will reduce county liability in the event of an injury or death.

The county is looking for money to pay for future upkeep of the access road and to hire guides.